Everton Relegation Betting: Can Moyes keep Toffees up? We assess their chances | OneFootball

English Premier League

David Moyes is back at Everton and looking to ensure they avoid relegation

David Moyes says he's not returned to Everton to manage a perennial relegation candidate, but what are his chances of keeping the Toffees in the Premier League?

Can Moyes keep Everton up?

David Moyes is back at Everton. And although he acknowledges his first priority is to keep the Toffees in the Premier League, he insists he's not returned to his former club to be in charge of a perennial relegation candidate.

Moyes will be back in the dugout as Everton host Aston Villa on Wednesday.

With new owners and a brand new stadium to move into next season, it's imperative that Everton remain a Premier League club, which is why Sean Dyche was replaced by Moyes with the team just a point outside the relegation zone following just three wins all season.

"I've told the players today: 'I'm not coming here to manage a team at the bottom of the league," said Moyes. "I'm coming to manage a team that's going to be fighting and challenging."

Betfair have Everton on a bit of a knife edge as 5/2 fifth favourites for Premier League relegation, with just the four teams below them in the table shorter to suffer the drop.

Premier League relegation odds

Toothless Toffees need goals

Moyes has some job to do. Only bottom side Southampton have won fewer games (1) and scored fewer goals (12) than Everton's 15. They've managed just one win in 11, although that came against fellow strugglers Wolves.

And the Toffees have been toothless up front having failed to score in eight of the past 10 league games, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin in particular struggling with just two league goals all season and none in his last 15 games.

And if Moyes can't get some goals out of him then new owners the Friedkin Group will open their cheque-book to sign a forward in January.

"We will give him as much confidence as we can and as much practice as we can but then there is a bit where you need the player to stand up and do his bit as well," Moyes said of Calvert-Lewin.

"I have told him I am needing goals off him right away and he has to start delivering. And we might look to strengthen in those areas if we can't get results ourselves."

Everton's scoring woes run deep, they've only managed this bad a return three times in their history, while their season xG rate of 18.33 is the lowest in the division. If Moyes wants to keep them up he'll need to find some goals.

Everton v Aston Villa (19:30 GMT)

The Toffees will hope for a new manager bounce, or should that be new old manager bounce, as they host Aston Villa - a team they've not beaten for 11 games (D3 L8) .

Everton have won just one of the past 11 Premier League games and are the second-lowest scorers with 15 goals, while failing to score in eight of the past 10 - but they'll hope that travel sick Villa can cure their scoring woes, as they've lost the last five away games conceding at least twice in each.

Villa are unbeaten in the last five trips to Goodison though, with clean sheets in the last three, so most of the stats point to goals being very much at a premium, with the visitors pretty hard to beat in this fixture.

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